Installation/Booting

First let me give the specifications of the test-computer that I used Knoppix 3.6 on: -Toshiba Portege 7020CT with Docking Station -Intel Pentium II Mobile Processor clocked at 366Mhz with 256Kb Cache (runs at around 147Mhz)
-192MB SDRAM
-13” TFT Display (1024x768)
-NeoMagic NM2200
-24x IDE DVD-ROM
-NEC 3.5” Floppy-Drive
-Intel 10/100 On-Board Ethernet NIC
-NetGear WG511 802.11g PCMCIA Wireless NIC @ 54Mbps
-Logitech USB Optical Mouse

I also tried Knoppix out on a faster Dell just for kicks. Just in case you're Curious:
-Dell Dimension 4500
-Intel Pentium IV Processor clocked at 2.40Ghz with 512Kb Cache
-512MB RAM
-17” Flat-Panel LCD Display (1024x768)

There really wasn't any installation involved, seeing as Knoppix is a Live CD Linux distribution. This section really covers booting it up.

To boot up from Knoppix, all I did was pop the CD into the drive and turn on the power. It's that simple! Shortly thereafter, I was presented with a boot-prompt where I was to enter boot options. Unfortunately, it didn't tell you what to enter to boot by default; I had to press another button to get to a screen of boot options. I figured out what to do, and I booted it up. I was very impressed with the speed at which it booted up, which was under 3 minutes. I know some might think that 3 minutes seems like a long time, but for me on my old Pentium II laptop, that's a god-send! It had a very descriptive dmesg, which told me everything I needed to know, but wasn't bogged down with useless status indicators that sometimes will plague an Operating System's bootup, slowing it down.

It automatically detected and configured my Wireless Card, something that had taken me months to get working with Fedora, and then hours with Yoper. My USB Mouse worked without any input from me, and overall it booted up without major event. One thing to note, however, is how it configured my monitor. Using the default boot options, my screen resolution was terrible! By default it was set up to 640x480, and when I tried to configure it after boot-up, my only other option was 320x240 (eww!). I rebooted the system, and played around with boot options until finally I got it working at 1024x768 (fb1024x768). (Interestingly, when I tried it on the Dell, Knoppix set the Display up to 1024x768 without my interaction)

When it came to hardware, everything was taken care of at boot-up. Not only does Knoppix detect your hardware, it optimizes its performance by using methods such as hardware acceleration.